but my own voice is there too
by singing-along
Summary: "And I am the Sky, and I speak the language of the Land. But my own voice is there too. My own voice full of rage." Drabbles about 1017, the Return, the new Sky. Will feature other members of the Land.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: All recognisable characters, events and places belong to Patrick Ness.**

 **Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts and intentions**

 **—**

 _"And I began to think that I was not just the last of the Burden, but the last of the Land as well. That I was alone. And on the morning I thought_ _this_ , _a morning where I stood on a riverbank, where I looked around yet again and saw only myself, only 1017 with a permanent mark burning into his arm —_

 _I wept."_

— _Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness_

On the twentieth day of loneliness, you wake to a rainwashed sunrise. Over the hills that roll on forever and ever into the distance, the sun rises like soft lava, watery and hanging like it may just give in at any moment. You imagine it falling, imagine the leaden wash of it that will bathe the world in blank, blank light. It may spiral, too, as it falls, painting the sky in single arcs of diluted despair and the utter endlessness of empty-eyed horizons.

It has clearly rained the night before. The leaves you have been sheltering beneath sting and slap against your cheek as you crawl out from beneath the bush, wet and cold, and you pull yourself into a more comfortable position and simply sit there. You will walk later, if you must. And you must. Run, even, if you are going to get any help, if there will be any help at all, if this whole chase will amount to anything at all and not just a bullet to your head and that nauseating chirping jeering of men in your face, if —

You will walk. But that is for later.

Later.

The rising sun bathes a weak glowing sheen onto the deserted hilltop you sit. You imagine the air sparkling before you, individual particles glittering weak and fitful like quivering dust motes before the approach of day sweeps them away. You lie onto your back and rest your head on the river bank as the water thunders on. It reminds you of the hoofbeats of great battlemores that have coloured the legends that lived in the voices of those left behind (no more, no more, no more, because even the most defeated of lives cannot be spared —)

Briefly, you think you can hear the voices of fish, darting like quicksilver, but the deep rush of the river sweeps them away before you can catch individual voices. You cast a look around you, more out of reflex than anything else, and sure enough, there is nothing that you may have hoped for. No sign of footprints, no rustle of leaves no sign that there is _anyone_ else left on this wide, wide, _wide_ world —

Something pulls at your chest, some sort of void that grips and tugs and sucks the air from out of your lungs, and over the hills that roll on forever and ever into the distance, the sun is soft lava, a water mirage hanging in the shimmering air, fitful, and for a moment, you are unable to see as you should, unable to speak, to breathe.

The river thunders on, it's roaring rush sweet in the deafening silence that threatens to swallow you whole, and you put two feet over the bank and into the frothing water, icy as a blade. A dark strength curls beneath its currents, and a terrible sense of purpose grips your body and your hands are taut as they hold you to the river bank, and just for a moment, you sit there and you breathe in, and you breathe out, and you breathe in again and this mere action feels like you're tearing yourself apart and it hurts so much that you squeeze your eyes shut, shut, shut —


	2. Chapter 2

_"I ran toward a rumour, a legend that lived in the voice of the Burden. We were of the Land, but some of us have never seen it, some of the young like me, born into the war that left the Burden behind when the Land made a promise never to return. So the Land, like their battlemores, were shadows and fables. Dreams of the day they would return to free us."_

— _Monsters of Men, Patrick Ness_

It hasn't always just been the two of us. When we were much, much smaller, there was another, an Older One who worked here too and taught us things we don't really remember anymore and told us stories with words like Land and Sky and Burden thrown out like rosebuds on a wedding day. Burden — what a strange, heavy word. I certainly remember those stories, and I know you do to, even if you don't mention it anymore.

We used to lie there by her feet, in the flickering light of the cook-fire she started. Curled up and into each other and staring at her like she'd paint the world in gold, and a smile would unfurl itself across the her worn lips.

In the flickering orange light her voice painted pictures in the sky. Pictures of others like us, but not quite us. There are others free from locks and whips of men, free and roaming far, far across the oceans. Others that are form the very Land of the world, its very, beating heart, untrapped by men and their serpentine selfishness that hide and hide and hide.

Huddled against the walls of our shed, she shows us the wideness of the world. If we were to cross that hill up to the north and just a bit further, we would see the endless ocean, unbounded except by other lands, other voices far across the skies. Lands free of men, lands they have never set foot upon and never will. The Older One showed us armies and warriors of the Land, the hundreds and thousands and _millions_ across that stretch across the skin of the world, all separate voices winding themselves into one, spoken by the mouth of the Sky. And Battlemores. Great creatures with unbreakable hide and battlehorns roaring the sound of the universe.

The Land will come, she promised. Sleep now, and they will come for us.

And on an evening like no other, like no other except for the broken leg the Older One nursed after fall, the she was dragged away by our Master. They told us that she was going to what they call veterinarians, people who would heal her. For the longest time, we wondered why — why did she not ever return if she was healed?

The memories of her slip away, like sand through cupped fingers. She leaves behind a trail of watery hope, spangled across the air of the shed she once slept in, the tools she once worked with like faint stardust in the skies above. You'd hold my hands, deep in the night of the shed when we're supposed to be asleep, sore after beatings, or I'd hold yours — doesn't matter — and your lips would curve into a small, sad smile, all soft lines in the autumn glow of the cook-fire. But your eyes would be bright, and your forehead warm as it presses against mine. You fill your voice with images of the wide, wide ocean and battlemores and the warriors astride them, and you and me, waiting for them to return and paint our world in gold. We'll wait for them. We'll wait for them together.

It's easier to sleep, at least.


	3. Chapter 3

_"She brings us to meet other members of the burden, whose voices reach forward in friendly greetings, that push me into myself with embarrassment. My one in particular, drawing their attention and letting me be shy as long as I need to."_

— _Patrick Ness, Monsters of Men_

She brings us there today with the new haul of tomatoes. I do not know the others well. We only ever meet each other here, in the hustling around and bustle of this rowdy market, with the bite of our Master's fingernails digging into our shoulders and her silence pressing in from behind like the Black Beyond threatening to tip over and swallow us whole. Their voices reach out to me too, jarring against the voicelessness of our Master. They probe and press, and push me a little deeper into myself in embarrassment. Their voices are friendly, though, and seem to promise of care and and companionship and concern —

Only if I allow them to, of course.

Perhaps it is because my memories have only ever started in this town of men who cursed their voices and adulterated it with bitter, serpentine bile that hides and hides and hides — but it has never really been so easy for me to speak.

Your voice, though is as open as theirs, open like the wide sky it should be. There is a sort of brilliance to it that pulls other voices towards you and holds them there, in their place until you've finished with what you need to say. You return greetings smooth and clear as though it is as easy as taking a next breath, until our Master's fingers dig themselves exceptionally hard into your shoulder — because I feel it too — and you return to business.

Your voice is streams flowing together in sunlit brilliance. You turn it to me too, every so often. And just for a few seconds, when it is just the two of us again —

It feels oddly empowering.


End file.
